Here’s a little anecdote on how John Bunyan once responded to a Cambridge critic about his use of the English Bible:
To these years before the Restoration belongs also the story of Bunyan’s encounter on the road near Cambridge with the university man, who asked him how he, not having the original Scriptures, dared to preach. To this he gave answer by asking this scholar, in turn, if he himself had the originals, the actual copies written by prophets and apostles. No, but he had what he knew to be true copies of the originals. “And I,” said Bunyan, “believe the English Bible to be a true copy also,” upon which the university man went his way.
—John Brown, John Bunyan: His Life, Times, and Work (1885), p. 117
Bunyan believed he had the original-text even though he did not have the autograph.... ;-)
ReplyDeleteNo, Timothy, read what he said. He called his Holy English Bible a true copy. And that is in fact a solid, historical Bible believing position, without claiming the "original-text" which would be in a various languages that few can read fluently and understand like their native tongue.
ReplyDeleteSteven
And, interestingly enough, his English Bible was not the King James Version.
ReplyDeletebut, his copy was one used to make the King James.
DeleteBased on my initial research of the writings of John Bunyan, his English Bible was the King James Version. He was aware of and sometimes referred to the Geneva, but his biblical quotations primarily match the KJV.
ReplyDeleteBased on my initial research of the writings of John Bunyan, his English Bible was the King James Version. He was aware of and sometimes referred to the Geneva, but his biblical quotations primarily match the KJV.
ReplyDelete